“Action? What the hell are you talking about? Other people?”
She lifts one brow and a malicious little smile tugs at her lips. I know what she means, at least the people part. Her family. The blue bloods who once had ties to the royal Spanish bloodline, the most pretentious, bitter in-laws you could have. “Just keep my daughter out of the papers. And keep yourself out of it, too. If me or my family have to be dragged through the mud one more time, things won’t be so easy anymore. You know that you got off easy with all of this, don’t you?”
I wiggle my jaw back and forth to relieve the tension, but I don’t say anything. I just push past Isabel and leave. But when I’m out at the car and I hear the door slam shut, I can’t help but turn around. Chloe Ann is at the second story window, hugging her plush panda bear close to her, staring at me with big eyes.
My heart shatters into pieces. I raise my hand to wave at her but she only turns and moves away from the window, disappearing into the darkness of the room. It takes all that I have not to break down, not to lose it. I get in the car and take a few moments to regain my composure, to slow my heart, to will away the dull ache inside. Isabel was right. I did get off easy. Everything before seems easy compared to the pain of right now and the pain that I know will follow.
Chapter Seven
I’m starting to feel like a prisoner in my own house. I don’t mind it so much, but Vera seems restless, like a caged animal. When I get back from Isabel’s, we decide not to chance having our photographs taken again and just stay inside for the evening. We order greasy Chinese food and finish off two bottles of expensive wine from my makeshift cellar in the front closet, but I know Vera is itching to go outside and let loose. She’s a bit drunk, as I am, and though we are feeling unfettered, I know the feeling is temporary. It’s a Band-Aid, but it’s a warranted one. We need to ignore the wounds for now.
It’s late when the phone rings, and once again it’s Isabel. I sigh, giving Vera a tired look, and she nods, heading toward the washroom with her glass of wine. She doesn’t need to give me privacy, but it makes me feel better if she’s not within earshot of my ex-wife’s potentially vile words.
Thankfully, Isabel is brief. She tells me that she’s taking Chloe Ann to see her parents over the weekend and I won’t be able to see her. I would normally take issue with this, but I let it pass. It worries me, as it should, that this could be the start of a new pattern, but at the moment I don’t really feel I have a leg to stand on. The wine wouldn’t help me win any argument either.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."
I turn in my chair as I put the phone back into my pocket and give Vera a curious look as she walks toward me. Yet another English saying that I don't know. "I'm afraid I don't understand."
She gives me a soft but tired smile and sits down on the armrest. I immediately wrap my arm around her waist and pull her down into my lap, where she comes to a rest with a tipsy giggle, her hair obscuring the impish smile on her face.
"Explain," I demand. "Or I will punish you with kisses."
She raises her brow. "Followed by punishment with penis?"
I shrug, glad she’s acting playful. "That can be arranged. Now tell me, my Estrella."
She sighs and buries her lips into my neck. I can't help the small moan that escapes from me, nor my hardness building beneath her ass. It would feel so good—so good—to just succumb to the physical, to take all this mental anguish away. I close my eyes and fight the urge to pick her up and take her to the bedroom, the only other way I know how to make her feel safe and sated, the only way I know how to escape during a time like this.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," she says against my throat, "is a saying. I don't know where it's from but it means nothing is scarier than a pissed off bitch." She pauses, sucking in her breath, and I know she fears she's said the wrong thing. "Sorry," she quickly adds, and I feel her body tense up beneath my fingers. "I didn't mean that Isabel is a bitch."
She is still so skittish over her words these days, it’s like she’s second guessing every aspect of her being. I cup the back of her head with my hand and let the softness of her hair wash over me. "I know you didn't," I assure her. "And, well, she is being a bitch." And that’s a major understatement.
"Can you blame her though?" she asks, her voice rising in pitch, and when she pulls away from me, her eyes are wet. It breaks my heart. I'm getting tired of my heart breaking, and I know that this isn't going to change anytime soon. Every day there is another weight on us and another crack appears.
"No," I tell her honestly. "I cannot blame her."
A silence lapses over us, heavy like a cloak.
Finally she clears her throat. "She's going to hurt for a long time," she says. "She's going to be angry. This isn't going away. I thought everything was behind us now, that she'd move on. You've been divorced for a year, if she's still this mad a year out . . ."
"She is mad because I am back with Atlético," I tell her. "She is mad because of the paparazzi, the way they are hounding us again. She is mad because she feels she is being made to look like a fool. If I had just stayed with my head down, she wouldn't be doing this."
"But you can't live your life in fear, Mateo," she tells me.
I smile at her and brush her sunset hair from her face. "And neither can you."
She settles back against my body—sinks, conforms, melds. She is a second skin. She is a part of myself I can't bear to separate from. I pray I never have to. I pray we can survive whatever is coming our way.
And I can feel it coming, that tension, that storm rolling in with each day. I’m so terribly afraid that my plan isn’t going to work, that she will be found out, that she won’t find a job, that she won’t get into the school. I’m so afraid the stars will take their brightest one away from me.
I pick her up in my arms, and for all her pillowy curves, she weighs nothing more than a feather. I take her down the hall to the bedroom and throw her on the bed. She glows in the ochre lights from the street that stream in through our windows, and it isn't long before we are both naked and I am climbing over her, pinning her arms above her head and drinking in her body like the most beautiful, decadent wine.